Olga: “I moved to the Netherlands after having lived in Germany with my husband for three years. Together, we’re raising our three children and I work as a freelance writer. But Dutch people have made it clear that they will always see people from countries that formerly found themselves behind the iron curtain as second-rate Europeans. When my eldest daughter was two and her sister only a baby, a Dutch woman called the police because she heard me speak Polish to my children. Later, a daycare nanny asked the three Polish children in the group, including my eldest daughter, not to speak their own language to one another.”
Joyce: “The political climate for international students over the past year (I’ve been here for four years, but I feel like the situation has been especially tense since parties began their election campaigns) has been extremely bleak. The Tory government and Reform leader Nigel Farage demonised international students in their bid to win votes in the election this summer.
Farage and some Conservative ministers implied we are the driving force behind surging immigration (a byword for “bad” for all parties this election season) – even though it is debatable whether students actually contribute to net migration to the UK. Many countries, including the US and Canada, choose not to count international students in their figures because most of us are temporary migrants who will return home after course completion.”
Immigration is not a byword for bad for the Green Party and the SNP.
Not the hate, but the consequences of it are the problem. Just think practical things like not being able to work for a week after I was attacked in Southampton (regardless of what the motivation for that was, whether it was misogyny or xenophobia or both). That’s how it begins. People who demonize someone have no idea of the profound effect it can have on all aspects of that person’s life.
Two days later
Yesterday, a Dutchwoman who doesn’t know me snapped at me that I’d better emigrate again. Thank you, darling. So kind of you to say that.
(Anyone can get stuck in a bad relationship or find themselves in any other kind of bad situation from which they need to extricate themselves in any kind of country.)
